All The Love You Stole
by cityofmist
Summary: Charles falls for Erik. Erik does not fall for Charles. Charles has more options than the average person would in this situation, and does not hesitate to misuse them.


**Warnings: **mindfuckery, not the fun kind. Implied/off-screen rape. And quite a bit of character derailment for Charles (my apologies).

* * *

><p>Charles has never been in love before, unless you count vicariously, but he knows how it feels. He learnt a long time ago to recognise love, how to tease at it and reshape it into whatever he needed, and then filed it away under <em>something I'll have to try someday<em>, not expecting that it would blindside him one night on the cold ocean and all choice of Charles' would be taken out of the equation. Sometimes Charles finds it amusingly ironic that the only person he can't touch with his powers is himself, that he is the only person who has no choice but to take their thoughts and feelings as they come. Sometimes it scares him.

They get onto the boat, shaking with cold and adrenaline, and go below decks, and Charles sits opposite Erik as he stares moodily at the floor and _finally_ - God, it feels like he's been waiting for hours - gets to fully immerse himself in this new and utterly fascinating mind. Charles looks raptly through Erik's thoughts and memories, his anger and determination and resentment, the amazingly complex structure of his mind, in much the way he would read an incredibly gripping novel: simultaneously wanting to skim through the whole thing as possible and get it all into his head, and to stop and savour every perfect word.

It is only when Erik goes to sleep and Charles settles down contently to watch his dreams that it occurs to him to think _I'm in trouble here._

* * *

><p>Erik is going to leave.<p>

It is obvious to Charles that this cannot be allowed to happen, but he spends most of the day preoccupied, debating just how, exactly, he is going to prevent it.

As it turns out, he takes the most obvious route of direct confrontation. He waits outside, quietly tracking Erik's movement through the compound, and when Erik's a few yards away from him he makes his presence known.

He doesn't want to have to do this with his powers if he doesn't have to; he extends his mind enough to be aware of which way Erik is leaning, as they talk, and he can't help but dip into Erik's mind - such a complex and beautiful thing; does Erik even know how remarkable he is? How fascinating? - and he speaks sincerely, even if he doesn't come right out and say _please don't leave me._

It doesn't work. He can feel the certainty solidifying in Erik's mind, the iron will focused almost entirely on leaving, and no number of words will make a difference. Years of ignoring people as they plead for their lives have, Charles suspects, given Erik a certain immunity to persuasion.

A last resort, then. 'I won't stop you leaving,' Charles says levelly. 'I could - ' (skirting around the topic of Charles' powers will do nothing to remove suspicion; Erik is not stupid) ' - but I won't.'

He feels a little guilty at the outright lie, but there are more important things to worry about. He teases out the necessary emotions, brings them to the forefront of Erik's mind: his gratitude to Charles for saving him, his curiosity as to where Charles and this government project will take him, his basic human need for companionship and camaraderie after so many years alone. His almost-entirely-suppressed hope that this time will be different. That the American government, with its freedom and democracy, will not go the same way Germany did.

Something changes in Erik's face, and Charles prays he won't realise what was done, but there's no suspicion there that he can detect.

'Shaw's got friends,' Charles says, the final stroke, tying it all back to Erik's overriding goal. 'You could do with some.'

It's perfectly crafted; everything falls into place and Erik's steely intentions collapse before Charles' metaphorical eyes.

It's done, then. Erik will stay.

_Thank God_, Charles thinks.

* * *

><p>Charles has been told, mostly by Raven, that it's unhealthy to be so preoccupied by other people's opinions of him (although lately Raven has stopped saying things like that, because she knows exactly what Charles would say in response), but he knows perfectly well that, given his advantages, just about everyone would take the opportunity to know what people think of them.<p>

He catalogues all of Erik's impressions of him: there's a warm rush of gratitude when he takes Erik's side on the mutant-recruitment issue, and Erik seems pleased enough at the prospect of the lengthy trip they'll be making for said recruitment (even if it's more because he is restless at the CIA compound and wants to be on the move again, he at least seems to consider Charles a perfectly acceptable travelling companion). They talk through plane flights and car journeys, and joke with each other, and grow comfortable in each other's company, and Charles can feel Erik's wary respect developing into a genuine affection.

He tries to be patient, and reminds himself that it takes time to get to know people when you don't have the advantage of being able to know someone's personality better than they do within a couple of hours of meeting them. It takes time. Charles will wait.

* * *

><p>Charles really does intend to be patient, but he can't stifle his curiosity, he's desperate to <em>know<em>, and when he finally caves it's ridiculously easy. A casual question about Erik's romantic history, and it's all in Erik's conscious thoughts ready for Charles to skim through. As it turns out, Erik doesn't really have a _romantic _history, if you define romance as involving a) deep feelings for someone and b) lasting longer than a couple of weeks. But then, travelling the globe with an obsessive desire for revenge doesn't really lend itself to commitment, and Charles isn't worried by that; what gives him pause is that the hazy faces in Erik's mind are exclusively female.

How stupid. How utterly, pathetically…_trite_ it would be, for Charles to fall head over heels for someone he'll never have, not because of personality or situation but purely on the basis of _gender_. It's almost amusing. When Charles gets over feeling like he's been punched in the stomach, he may laugh.

But there's hope. Charles knows, after all, that the human mind is flexible in just about all regards. He has options. This will just require some thought.

* * *

><p>They play chess when they get to Westchester, and Charles resists the temptation to cheat (except when he's really losing) and tries not to be distracted by Erik's elegant, long-fingered hands, and the beautiful expression of concentration on his face.<p>

'You're cheating,' Erik says shortly, although he's smiling. 'I hardly think that's fair.'

'Sorry,' Charles says. He pauses, and then says hesitantly, 'It doesn't worry you, does it, the…?' He taps his fingers to his head to indicate telepathy, and hopes against hope that the answer isn't _yes, actually it does_. Erik's mind is ordered and logical yet still so full of emotion, complicated and delicate and perfectly balanced, razor-edged, and it is beyond a doubt the most beautiful Charles has ever had the good luck to come across. Charles waits, and prays that Erik will not want to deny him entry.

Erik shrugs.

'Raven made me promise not to read her mind,' Charles adds nervously. 'Quite a while ago.'

'You don't have to promise that for me,' Erik says; he tilts his head, meets Charles' eyes, and something catches in his chest. 'Your powers are a _part _of you. I would never ask you to just dismiss that.'

'Oh,' Charles says, and Erik shrugs again, returning his attention to the game (he has three different strategies lined up to checkmate, Charles sees with dismay, and it seems unlikely that Charles can avoid all of them.)

'You're cheating again,' Erik notes.

'Oh,' Charles says. 'Yes. Sorry.'

* * *

><p>Subtlety, Charles is aware, is important (he learned that to his cost on one or two occasions, during the long process of convincing his parents that, no, actually they had <em>two <em>children). He shows Erik around the house; he asks Erik for help with Sean's training; he tries to think of how he can help Erik use his own power, and when that satellite dish starts to turn he is rewarded by the look on Erik's face, a smile that's possibly the best thing he's ever seen and an exhilaration that sweeps through Erik's mind like a wave of light. Erik takes so much joy and satisfaction in his own power; surely he would understand that Charles can't ignore his own when it's just crying out to be used.

Of course he would understand. He all but said it himself.

Erik's feelings from Charles have long moved on from _associate_ to _friend_, and all Charles does is push them a little further, introduce a few new notes of want. It's a slow process and a complicated one, but Charles keeps going, because every time he touches Erik's feelings for him they're a little closer to what he dreams of. A little closer to desire.

They'll get there, he hopes. He _wants_.

* * *

><p>Charles, making frequent checks with his need for constant reassurance, is confident of Erik's feelings for him (artificial, perhaps, but no less real for that) but it makes him feel sick, genuinely nauseated, when he sees the way Erik looks at Raven's natural form - slender and scaled and uncompromisingly, vividly blue - with an admiration he makes no attempt to hide. Charles watches the glances they slide each other over the breakfast table, thinks of Erik with Raven, Erik with his <em>sister<em>, and feels something twist sharply in his stomach.

He dips automatically into Erik's mind, and sees Raven there. Not blonde and smiling as she is now, spreading another slice of toast, but glowing blue, eyes golden, luminous with power and confidence: a shining amalgamation of the way Erik sees her and the way he wants her to be.

Charles hadn't realised that jealousy would be such a _physical _sensation. A hand tugging sharply at his intestines, he thinks, a sense of intrusion and wrongness; Erik can'tbe with someone else, he just _can't_.

He dives in almost before he knows what he's doing; his mind is full of images of Erik and Raven and _oh God wrong _and he has to stop it. Erik's mind, layers on impossibly complex layers, like wire mesh, and it's so easy: a faint veil of _wrong_ drawn over Raven's glowing image, and just the thread of an idea, _if she were a little older; if the time were right…_

Raven looks at Erik through her lashes, and he looks back with not _quite _the same cool smile as before. The difference is all but imperceptible, but Charles sees it, with relief coursing through him. He should; he put it there.

* * *

><p>It's that night, as it turns out, that Charles lies on his bed, awake and fully dressed, with his awareness spread lazily over the house, and finds Raven in Erik's room.<p>

He darts out to Erik and he's walking down the corridor, on his way to bed. Charles follows him and waits for him to reach his bedroom door, waits to see his reaction, with a strange mixture of nervousness and confidence. _If I've done it right, everything will be fine_, he tells himself.

'Well, this is a surprise,' Erik says smoothly, thinking _Ah. Well. This will be awkward._

Charles smiles.

He watches closely as it all unfolds. The hero-worship in Raven's face as she looks at Erik, the desperate need for validation, for _anyone _to tell her that she's beautiful as she is, is painful to watch. Charles wishes, as he has before, that he could reach into her mind and gently smooth things over. Make her content with what she has, convince her that hiding is worthwhile, stop her from wanting probably the only man in the house (other than Charles himself) she won't be able to have. It would make everything so much easier; Raven would be so much happier; but promises are promises, and there are limits.

Erik is gentlemanly and complimentary and tactful, as Charles watches; in Erik's own words, it is _perfection_. He means every word he says to Raven, Charles notes: _too young_, Erik thinks, and Charles' work that morning - thank God he caught this in time - was good enough that the fact that if you look like things like legalities and accepted standards she isn't does not intrude on his sincerity.

He kisses Raven chastely, and gently recommends that she go back to her room with her newfound self-respect, and the thought, Charles could swear, is already half-formed even before Charles implants just the _faintest _suggestion that perhaps it would be a good idea to tell Charles what happened.

Erik won't be here straightaway. Charles fetches himself a drink, and settles down to wait.

* * *

><p>Erik doesn't take more than half an hour or so to get himself together, but by that time Charles is growing impatient and the knock at his door is welcome.<p>

'Come in,' he calls; there is a _click _as Erik unlocks the door and then he is standing in the doorway, lit up against the semi-dark corridor, and, God, he's beautiful.

'Erik,' Charles says. 'To what do I owe the pleasure?'

'Your sister turned up in my bed this evening,' Erik says, smiling. 'I thought perhaps I should tell you. Assuming that you didn't already know.'

'I did, yes,' Charles says with a grin. 'My brotherly protective instincts aren't really necessary here, are they? I couldn't help but see, and you were quite the gentleman.'

'Raven's not my type,' Erik says (and it's true, now, that's the beauty of it; any lingering desire for Raven is gone, and Erik's not even aware that it ever existed. The fluidity of the human mind never ceases to amaze even Charles.)

'Oh? What _is _your type?' Charles says, and continues smiling, and thinks _If he doesn't want this, now, I won't do anything. I won't force him to do anything. There are _limits_, damn it. _(It's important, Charles always feels, that he have limits.) _I _won't_ force him._

This promise made, Charles steels himself in case of disappointment and looks into Erik's mind.

He is almost disoriented by what he finds there, because there's not just the attraction and desire that Charles laced into Erik's feelings of friendship for him. There's something that's surprising and overwhelmingly familiar; apparently the seeds Charles planted grew faster and thicker than he expected, because what Charles is looking at, from an outside perspective, is almost exactly what he's been feeling since he first touched Erik's mind in Florida.

'You're the telepath,' Erik says smoothly, and his smile sends sparks up Charles' spine. 'You tell me.'

* * *

><p>It is without doubt the best night of Charles' life, and when he brushes lightly over Erik's mind and discovers that it has also been the best night of his - it's not forcing someone if they want it, it's not forcing someone if it's their decision, how can this be wrong when Erik is so <em>happy<em> - Charles cannot remember ever having been happier.

* * *

><p>Erik is not stupid, and years of Nazi-hunting have given him a healthy tendency to paranoia; it does occur to him what Charles' powers make him capable of. They lie tangled and satisfied in bed, on a lazy morning (it's raining, and the consensus seems to be that, despite the fact that Charles has a large mansion with a roof, this is as good a reason as any not to get up) and Charles and Erik are both lazily drifting on the currents of Erik's mind. Charles <em>loves<em> being in people's thoughts when they're just daydreaming, watching the total randomness of memories and ideas that are picked up and sifted through, the tenuous absent-minded chains of connection. Unsurprisingly, Erik's thoughts are centring around the man in his bed - more than they are anything else, at least - and Charles doesn't think he will ever get tired of feeling the love and the trust in Erik's mind when Erik thinks about him. He is so lucky to have this, to have Erik -

_He could make me love him, if he wanted_, Erik absently thinks, _this could all be fake_, and Charles freezes. His first, irrational instinct is to dive into Erik's mind and erase the thought, wipe any possibility of Charles manipulating him from his head, but that's rather pushing the envelope on the ethically dubious, and he shouldn't have to, anyway. Erik's thoughts were in context strictly hypothetical, more I-suppose-this-could-theoretically-be-possible than hmm-that's-worrying. Erik wouldn't seriously suspect him, at least, he _shouldn't_ -

_Do you trust me? _he projects at Erik, trying to hide his anxiety.

Erik turns to meet Charles' eyes, raises an eyebrow. _You were listening?_

_Sorry._

Since Erik's expressions normally run all along the scale of 'serious' to 'surly', Charles is unfailingly surprised by how widely he smiles. _You shouldn't have to ask_, Erik thinks, loud and clear, and Charles grins back at him and thinks, again, how lucky he is to have this. All of this. And, not that he is arrogant, but how lucky Erik is, as well, to have him.

* * *

><p>It doesn't occur to Charles until the first wave of agony rolls over him that he's going to feel every inch of that coin's journey. He's distracted by Erik, by screaming and shouting and beating against those insurmountable metal walls, by his increasingly desperate attempts to batter his way through into that empty, terrifyingly blank space where Erik's mind should be, <em>how can it be gone, he can't be gone<em>,_ please, no, _Erik -

And then the pain starts. Charles screams, and he can't begin to think beyond the shattering agony in his skull, but he has to, because _oh God _because he has to save Erik. This is all he can do, now. Charles has made Erik do a lot of things, but Erik is beyond his reach now. Charles can't make him stop. Charles can try and try and try but he _can't make Erik stop._

Charles thinks the pain will last forever, but it doesn't. Nothing does. And when it finally ends, he understands that something else has ended, too; something else has been lost, and will not be coming back.

Charles has made Erik do a lot of things, for better or worse, but he can't make him stay.


End file.
